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06/09/2026 5:18 pm
TL;DR: DAST tools simulate live attacks to uncover runtime vulnerabilities in web apps and APIs, but legacy scanners often miss business logic flaws, broken authorisation, and dynamic authentication paths, according to LEVO. The gap is no longer just coverage, but whether application testing can keep pace with how APIs actually behave in production.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by LEVO: Dynamic Application Security Testing tools for modern APIs and runtime validation
By the numbers:
- 70% of successful breaches in 2023 stemmed from, from vulnerabilities in application layer components, especially APIs and web services.
- The average cost of a data breach in 2023 reached $4.45 million, according to IBM.
- 75% of enterprises admit they lack a complete, plete API inventory.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams continuously test APIs in modern environments?
A: Security teams should combine continuous discovery with authenticated and unauthenticated testing, then retest automatically when endpoints change or fixes land.
Q: Why do legacy DAST tools miss broken authorisation in APIs?
A: Legacy tools often rely on static schemas, limited crawling, and isolated requests.
Q: What are the signs that API testing coverage is incomplete?
A: Common signs include incomplete inventories, heavy dependence on manual schema uploads, frequent false confidence from clean scans, and findings that never map to real owners or live workflows.
Practitioner guidance
- Map DAST coverage to API discovery gaps Inventory which APIs are only known through OpenAPI documents, manual entry points, or authenticated workflows, then prioritize runtime testing where discovery is incomplete.
- Test authorisation across user roles and sessions Build test cases that exercise the same endpoint with different roles, tokens, and session states so broken object level authorisation and privilege escalation paths are actually checked.
- Require runtime validation for critical flows For payment, admin, and partner workflows, require validation that the application enforces the intended access decision at runtime rather than assuming the endpoint is safe because the scan passed.
What's in the full article
LEVO's full guide covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- Tool-by-tool comparison of top DAST platforms for API-heavy environments and DevSecOps workflows
- Feature-level guidance on API discovery, OpenAPI imports, authentication handling, and CI/CD integration
- Product-specific notes on runtime-aware testing, developer triage, and remediation workflow support
- Pricing and fit commentary for teams choosing between legacy DAST and newer API-focused approaches
👉 Read LEVO's guide to the top DAST tools for API and runtime testing →
DAST and API blind spots: what security teams need to know?
Explore further
06/09/2026 5:19 pm
Runtime application security is now an identity-adjacent control problem, not just an AppSec testing problem. Once a scanner is assessing login flows, tokens, delegated access, and object-level authorisation, it is touching the same trust boundaries that IAM teams care about. That means testing quality now depends on whether the tool can understand who or what is authorised to do what at runtime. For practitioners, the implication is simple: application testing and access governance can no longer be treated as separate conversations.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Should organisations prioritise runtime API testing over traditional web DAST?
A: They should prioritise runtime API testing for the most business-critical flows, while keeping conventional web DAST for broader baseline coverage. The decision is not either-or. The higher the API complexity, delegated access, and statefulness, the more runtime context should dominate the testing strategy.
👉 Read our full editorial: Legacy DAST tools miss API runtime flaws that attackers exploit
